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Car Smoking Banned From Midnight
58 Answers
So the Smoke Free (Private Vehicles) Regulations 2015 come into force at midnight.
Quirks ... (just to make the Police's job REALLY hard!)
The ban applies to motorhomes, obviously ... as long as they are moving. Not if they are stationary.
The ban does not apply to convertibles with the top open. The top on a Fiat 500 Convertible is just a strip down the middle of the roof. But the ban does not apply. Several other cars have an identical opening strip, but call it a full sun roof. The ban does apply.
The ban does not apply to vape sticks. If you put something in your mouth and puff out a cloud of smoke, the Police have a passing instant to spot the difference and decide to stop you.
If a 17 year old and an 18 year old are in a car together, the 17 year old can smoke, but the 18 year old cannot.
Is it an offence to merely "hold" a cigarette? I'm not going to smoke it until I get out of the car. I've just lit the end.
If it is an offence to be holding a lit cigarette, a 17 year old driver can smoke, but if he passes the cigarette to an 18 year old passenger just to hold while he reverses the car, the passenger becomes guilty of an offence.
Or is the passenger okay because it's not his cigarette he's holding? Do the Police also have to work out who is the owner of the cigarette?
The Police Federation have said ...
The law is impracticable and unenforceable. Our officers should not be expected to work as health workers. We are not going to enforce the new law.
Taxpayers' money well spent passing this legislation?
Quirks ... (just to make the Police's job REALLY hard!)
The ban applies to motorhomes, obviously ... as long as they are moving. Not if they are stationary.
The ban does not apply to convertibles with the top open. The top on a Fiat 500 Convertible is just a strip down the middle of the roof. But the ban does not apply. Several other cars have an identical opening strip, but call it a full sun roof. The ban does apply.
The ban does not apply to vape sticks. If you put something in your mouth and puff out a cloud of smoke, the Police have a passing instant to spot the difference and decide to stop you.
If a 17 year old and an 18 year old are in a car together, the 17 year old can smoke, but the 18 year old cannot.
Is it an offence to merely "hold" a cigarette? I'm not going to smoke it until I get out of the car. I've just lit the end.
If it is an offence to be holding a lit cigarette, a 17 year old driver can smoke, but if he passes the cigarette to an 18 year old passenger just to hold while he reverses the car, the passenger becomes guilty of an offence.
Or is the passenger okay because it's not his cigarette he's holding? Do the Police also have to work out who is the owner of the cigarette?
The Police Federation have said ...
The law is impracticable and unenforceable. Our officers should not be expected to work as health workers. We are not going to enforce the new law.
Taxpayers' money well spent passing this legislation?
Answers
Sorry....
14:19 Wed 30th Sep 2015
Don't think the cops will be to bothered.
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woofgang...
A fair point.
What about the argument that the seat belt law is simple - everyone in the car has to wear one.
But the smoking law is complex ... 17 year olds can smoke if the driver is 18, but not if the driver is 17. You can smoke in a car with windows but no roof if it is called a convertible, but not in an identical type of car if it is called a retractable sun roof. You can smoke things that look just like cigarettes, as long as they are not cigarettes. Etc.
A fair point.
What about the argument that the seat belt law is simple - everyone in the car has to wear one.
But the smoking law is complex ... 17 year olds can smoke if the driver is 18, but not if the driver is 17. You can smoke in a car with windows but no roof if it is called a convertible, but not in an identical type of car if it is called a retractable sun roof. You can smoke things that look just like cigarettes, as long as they are not cigarettes. Etc.
hc ...
Thats true.
But the Police will be lucky if they have I've seconds to assess the ages of the people in cars passing down the road.
That's like walking into a Sixth Form of 120 pupils, and you have 2 minutes to decide whether each of the 120 pupils is 16, 17, or 18. Get it wrong, and you're stopping cars for no reason. Or ignoring 16 year old smokers.
Shopkeepers and pub doormen take a few seconds to scrutinise the ID of people that age. The Police will have about one second per passenger, in a moving vehicle.
Hopefully there's no other crime going on, because the Police are going to have to focus all their attention on this. Or, as they have said, they just decide they can't enforce it.
Thats true.
But the Police will be lucky if they have I've seconds to assess the ages of the people in cars passing down the road.
That's like walking into a Sixth Form of 120 pupils, and you have 2 minutes to decide whether each of the 120 pupils is 16, 17, or 18. Get it wrong, and you're stopping cars for no reason. Or ignoring 16 year old smokers.
Shopkeepers and pub doormen take a few seconds to scrutinise the ID of people that age. The Police will have about one second per passenger, in a moving vehicle.
Hopefully there's no other crime going on, because the Police are going to have to focus all their attention on this. Or, as they have said, they just decide they can't enforce it.
The seat belt laws are considerably more straightforward than this nonsense, hc.
From memory, almost all cars manufactured since 1987 require seat belts front and rear. Goods vehicles from the same date require front seat belts. Minibuses and the like manufactured since about 2000 require likewise. (Older vehicles are fairly easy to spot). If the vehicle is fitted with seatbelts they must be worn except by those crewing emergency vehicles, a driver (or supervisor of a learner driver) which is reversing, a licensed taxi driver or a delivery vehicle making frequent stops (every 50 yards or metres springs to mind as the criterion). Again, all of these are fairly easy to spot. There are also exemptions on medical grounds but these are so few and far between as to be negligible.
By contrast these new regulations require the police to see whether an occupant is smoking, whether he smoking or “vaping”, assess how old the occupants are, whether the car has a sunroof or whether it is one of those “convertibles” that Jayne describes.
I am a little disturbed that the police have decided which laws they will enforce and which they will not. However, this legislation is typical of much which spews forth lately: conceived with the best of intentions but badly thought out by civil servants and politicians with little or no thought for the practicalities of enforcement. And laws that cannot be readily enforced bring the law into disrepute.
From memory, almost all cars manufactured since 1987 require seat belts front and rear. Goods vehicles from the same date require front seat belts. Minibuses and the like manufactured since about 2000 require likewise. (Older vehicles are fairly easy to spot). If the vehicle is fitted with seatbelts they must be worn except by those crewing emergency vehicles, a driver (or supervisor of a learner driver) which is reversing, a licensed taxi driver or a delivery vehicle making frequent stops (every 50 yards or metres springs to mind as the criterion). Again, all of these are fairly easy to spot. There are also exemptions on medical grounds but these are so few and far between as to be negligible.
By contrast these new regulations require the police to see whether an occupant is smoking, whether he smoking or “vaping”, assess how old the occupants are, whether the car has a sunroof or whether it is one of those “convertibles” that Jayne describes.
I am a little disturbed that the police have decided which laws they will enforce and which they will not. However, this legislation is typical of much which spews forth lately: conceived with the best of intentions but badly thought out by civil servants and politicians with little or no thought for the practicalities of enforcement. And laws that cannot be readily enforced bring the law into disrepute.
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